When you bite into a juicy, perfectly ripe peach from a North Carolina farm this summer, you’re tasting decades of careful research, trial and error and dedicated work. Much of that work has been centered at the Sandhills Research Station in the Windblow community, tucked into the southeast corner of Montgomery County, near the Moore and Richmond County lines.
Mike Parker, Ph.D., a tree fruit specialist with N.C. State University, said it plainly: “The Sandhills Research Station has been the center for peach research in North Carolina for decades.”
“Growers have ups and downs, and I think the research that we’ve done allows us to give information to growers that allows them to stay in business and remain profitable and productive,” Parker said. “Without that research, they’re not gonna have that information available. So I think having research in North Carolina, if you look at the research station or the land grant university — that’s N.C. State — our job is to take research-based information to our grower community to make them profitable.
Researchers spent years breeding new peach varieties suited to thrive in North Carolina. Although the university no longer runs a formal peach breeding program, the station is still at the forefront of ongoing testing of varieties old and new, to helping growers across the state improve their harvests and their livelihoods.
Finding the Right Fit for N.C. Farms
One of the station’s long-standing focuses has been evaluating and recommending peach varieties that can withstand North Carolina’s variable frosts/freezes in late winter and early spring. It can be devastating to peach growers if their peach trees begin to bloom during the first warm days of the year but then get a freeze before winter fully fades away.
“One of the major issues that peach growers have had — that they see going back into the 70s and 80s — was frost or freeze during bloom,” Parker said. “And when that happens, when the blossoms experience cold temperatures [during bloom], it kills the blossoms. And there is no peach crop for that year.”
That’s why he and others have worked to identify high chill-hour varieties — peaches that need more cold weather before they bloom. The idea is that trees that bloom later are more likely to avoid a freeze. Among the most successful results of that effort are varieties like Contender, China Pearl, and Carolina Gold, which Parker said are “very popular with growers” and a direct result of N.C. State’s breeding work. These varieties are hardier and more reliable in the face of the state’s variable weather during the winter-to-spring transition.
“You’ve heard of the peach Winblo?” Parker said. “It’s a very high-quality peach, but there are many years that it gets frosted out when our Contenders come through.”
A Breakthrough in Peach Thinning
Another exciting advancement is a commercially available spray that helps thin peach trees during bloom — something growers have traditionally had to do manually. Thinning is necessary because peach trees can grow more peaches than they can size — often growing bunched up on the tree limbs. The thinning removes extra peaches, which provides room for the remaining peaches to grow to the size customers want. The thinning also ensures the tree limbs aren’t overloaded, which can lead them to break under the weight of extra peaches. Up to 80 percent reduction may be needed in a full crop season.
“Many growers can spend $1,500, $2,000 an acre to thin by hand,” Parker said. “This is the first time we really have something that would be commercially available for growers to use to thin peaches.”
It’s a change that could mean big savings, especially as labor availability and costs remain a challenge.
“Labor’s killing farmers,” Parker said. “So this is a product that we can use to reduce labor inputs for peach growers.”
Tackling Peach Tree Short Life
The team at Sandhills is also part of a national effort to test rootstocks — particularly to combat Peach Tree Short Life (PTSL), a disorder that causes trees to die off far too early.
“We’re looking at root stocks that will tolerate and minimize Peach Tree Short Life,” said Parker. “And then also those that maybe could grow smaller trees, so we could put more trees per acre — what we call high density.”
While the Guardian rootstock has emerged as the best option so far, researchers are continuing to evaluate new ones from around the world, from Spain to California.
“We have not found anything that will do better than our Guardian rootstock for eastern North Carolina,” Parker said.
On the Ground, Long-Term Research
Research like what’s done for peaches at the Sandhills Research Station takes time, and a lot of it.
“These are 10-year studies,” Parker said. “We have to have fruit [for the research], but if it takes three years to get the trees into production, you’ve got quite a commitment to get that.”
The time and effort are worth it though. Even if the research doesn’t result in something new and better, most findings are valuable. Experiments with biochar are good example. The soil amendment touted in other parts of the world hasn’t lived up to the hype in Windblow’s sandy soils.
“We’re finding out very quickly that biochar is not the silver bullet,” Parker said. “Negative research is also good research, you know? I would much rather kill trees on my research plots than having growers kill trees in their commercial orchards.”
The Case for Local Peaches
Beyond the science, Parker has a personal mission to help consumers reconnect with real peaches.
“I think people realize that food doesn’t come from the grocery store,” he said. “But a vast majority of the public have never had a high-quality tree-ripened peach.”
His advice is to skip the supermarket because most the peaches you find at grocery stores come from out of state — picked before they’re juicy and flavorful and shipped in refrigeration.
“If you want high-quality peaches, go to local growers or the farmers markets,” he said. “The quality is superb.”
With late June and all of July being the peak of peach season in North Carolina, it’s the perfect time to visit a local farm, meet a grower and taste the results of years — sometimes decades — of thoughtful research happening right in our own state.